101 Reasons I Hate Chess #13 - 21: Game Ending Conclusions
This is all about love and hate. And where they intersect in my chess. And sometimes bisect.
We won't talk about everything chess. But over this series we will give brief shoutouts to the following: Players, Bloggers & Streamers; Game Ending Conclusions; How to Improve at Chess; The Pieces; Openings; Endings; Variants that use a Standard Board; Variants that use Nonstandard Boards; and finish with Clocks and Time Controls.
Game Ending Conclusions
13. Loss on time
Yeah, that's me. I'd like to blame it on internet lag time or wireless mouse lag. But the truth is I often spend too much time thinking about a beautiful attack only to suddenly realize my opponent has two minutes more than me on the clock and my would-be initiative is no better than theirs. That's a recipe for failure.☠️
14. Draw - Insufficient Material
Talk about your love-hate relationship. I can't count the number of times I've "saved" a draw by capturing my opponent's last piece, just before my clock expired. Sure, I didn't lose because I eliminated that last, mangy pawn before my clock ran out. But I was up a Queen and who knows how much else material. Well, I know. Argghhhh! And not a pirate's call to rum! Just a stupefying realization that I am too slow at blitz.☠️
15. Checkmate
Hey! Hey!! The fans actually want to see checkmates appear on the board!!! Titled players are so rude, always ignoring the fans wishes.
16. Stalemate
Well...it's good if I was on the losing side. Frustrating yet humorous if I was winning in a blitz game and got caught delivering stalemate during a time crunch. It's better than losing, I guess. But it would be gut wrenching at a rapid or slow time control. That hasn't happened yet, so perhaps I should quit now before that particular, inevitable catastrophe enters my oeuvre.
17. Perpetuals
See stalemate. That said, there are some beautiful perpetuals that don't involve the King. Ahh...almost as good as a cup of hot coffee on an oh-dark-thirty, cold winter's morning in the woods.
No animals or other species were harmed in the conjuration of this image.18. Mouse slip
Eek, that hurts.☠️ If you haven't been there, you ain't playin' enuff online games. 'Nuff said.
19. Pre-moves that fail
Sigh. And again. Some pre-moves are safe. But I'd say I lose a couple games a month with thoughtless pre-moves that don't account for the fact my opponent could do something else.
Zugzwang my patootie. I just need to close my eyes and take something more magical than aspirin...so it all goes away.20-21. Zugzwang
20. First, it just hurts my head. "The laws of Chess do not permit a free choice: you have to move whether you like it or not", Emanuel Lasker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. But given the laws of chess, what is this stuff and nonsense about losing material or making positional concessions whether I move or don't?
21. Second, the experts disagree about what constitutes a "real" zugzwang. So, I've created the term zugzwang light. It sounds like a light beer in that it offers fewer expectations. But the truth is, it's easier to swallow. At least for me. It admits that sometimes one side has a piece that can shuffle around meaninglessly, but to no more effect than not being able to move at all. Meanwhile the other side slowly improves. Zugzwang light is actually more painful than a pure zugzwang. In the pure case you have to concede something immediately. In the not-so-lighthearted case you are forced to watch the other side slowly make inroads, like some ephemeral staph infection that slowly eats at your soul.
Here's a very short puzzle to test your ability to create a lighter version of zugzwang. Drink up, me hearties!
Here's an example of a pure zugzwang where the opponent has to make immediate concessions, offered as a puzzle. Even a zugzwang-dolt like me managed to spot this one. Of course, that is probably because I'd seen a very similar example the week before in a game between GMs.
